"We used to think bariatric surgery worked for purely mechanical reasons. That is, caloric restriction and decreased nutrient intake were responsible for the improvements in diabetes control," says Lee M. Kaplan, MD, PhD, director of the obesity research center at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

New research shows that physiological changes associated with weight loss surgery, such as changes in gut hormones, may also help to drive diabetes into remission, he tells WebMD.

At a briefing that was sponsored by Ethicon Endo-Surgery, a maker of bariatric surgery products, Kaplan and other leading experts discussed how they are working to understand the mechanisms of weight loss surgical procedures at the tissue, cellular, molecular, and genetic levels.

The goal is to develop less invasive, less risky, and less costly approaches to fighting diabetes, says Philip Schauer, MD,professor of surgery at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine.